MML Welcomes New Board Members

Chris McPhail is an alderman with the city of Clever. He was appointed to fill a vacant seat in August 2019 and elected to fill the position in June 2020. Chris is married with three children. He retired from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2015 as a lieutenant after 24 years of service. Chris retired from the Springfield Police Department in 2017 as a corporal after 23 years of service. Chris is currently employed as the police chief in the city of Battlefield. Chris became interested in municipal government several years ago when he began following Springfield City Council meetings. In 2010, he was appointed to the Clever planning and zoning committee. He began attending MML regional training sessions and annual conferences in April 2018. The exposure to elected officials and the information he obtained motivated him to become involved with the Clever Board of Aldermen.

Heather B. Navarro is the 28th ward alderwoman in the city of St. Louis. She was elected in 2017 in a special election and re-elected in 2019. She currently serves on the following board of aldermen committees: parks & environment (vice-chair), health and human services (vicechair), public utilities, and education and youth matters. She moved to St. Louis from Bloomington, Illinois, in 1997 to attend Washington University where she earned a B.A. in environmental studies (2001) and a law degree (2008). She practiced law in the private, public interest law firm of Thomas E. Kennedy, III, serving parents of children with special needs and victims of discrimination. For almost the past eight years she has served as executive director of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, a statewide environmental advocacy organization. This role assisted her to develop relationships at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Missouri Department of Conservation, the St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with dozens of groups and nonprofits across the state. She recently stepped down to focus on her aldermanic work and her family. Together, with her husband, they have two children in high school, one at the University of Missouri, and one in Gainesville, Florida. Heather has served on a variety of boards, from the neighborhood level to the Green Center, an arts and education center in University City, and Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace movement. She spent five months volunteering in Guatemala and studied abroad in Queensland, Australia. She also spent a year in service at the Catholic Student Center at Washington University before beginning law school.

Lori Obermoeller is currently the director of finance for the city of Creve Coeur. She has more than 26 years of municipal finance experience. Prior to joining Creve Coeur, Obermoeller served as the director of finance for the cities of Hazelwood, Branson, Chesterfield, Ellisville, Shrewsbury and Glendale. Obermoeller is a certified public finance officer who obtained her Master’s in business administration from Lindenwood University and a Bachelor of Arts in accounting and business administration from Drury College. Obermoeller has served on the Government Finance Officers Association of Missouri (MO-GFOA) Missouri State Board and the GFOA-St. Louis Chapter. She continues to be actively involved in GFOA. She has also served the past two years on the MML Resolutions Committee and the MML Finance & Taxation Policy Committee. In Obermoeller’s spare time, she is a mentor to Drury University students, enjoys traveling and loves spending as much time as possible with family and friends.